Sunday, June 1, 2014

Diggin' Into Next Year: Classroom Organization

There are a ton of great topics planned for this summer... just check out the calendars below!

This week's topic is classroom organization. We got out of school last Friday and all this week I haven't been able to get into my room to take pictures! It always gets cleaned first in the summer so I am going to share some of some pretty random classroom organization tips/suggestions/ideas.

First up are my math stations. When I first started doing math stations I had 10 tubs. Each time I switched out the tubs I had to find a place for the old stations to go. You know how that ends up when it comes to busy teachers... stations shoved everywhere. Oh, I will remember that I shoved all of the February Math Stations into that bottom filing cabinet.... right? So I decided to try for some containers from Donor's Choose and I was lucky enough to get them. I have about 8-10 tubs per month and all I have to do is switch them out and I am ready to go! Such a time saver!

Another great tool for keeping organized are these tubs! I love having them all full and ready for the week! I just wish that there were different color schemes... don't they know how weird us teachers are getting about our color schemes!?!

My classroom library was another big pain in my existence the first couple of years I moved into first grade. Books, books everywhere! First graders are just learning the importance of taking care of books, placing them back on the shelf the right way, and how to sort books back where they should be. I have found that baskets work wonders for keeping your library organized. You can get a free copy of these labels by clicking HERE!

Finally, I love these big metal tubs! I used vinyl to trace and then cut out the letters. I got the tubs super cheap from Michael's which seems to have become the teacher steals and deals place in the last year! The kids know what each tub is for, they know to put their folder in the same place every morning, where the clipboards are and where the books for that week's topics are. I am hoping they have some more of these this summer!

You can head on over to "Where the Magic Happens" to check out all the other link-ups!